A Personal Journey Toward Housing Equity and Justice
The following contribution was written by Ashley Allen, Executive Director for Houston Community Land Trust as a contribution to the upcoming webinar on “Stewarding the Future: Youth Power and Leadership in Community Land Trust Practice” on 4 December.
In 1993 my family became homeless. I remember our first nights in the Salvation Army Shelter. I was nine almost ten years old and I remember sleeping on the top bunk of a metal bunk bed that I shared with my four-year-old sister while my mom and newborn brother shared the bunk below. As I looked around there were almost a hundred women and children in one large room all in these bunk beds, lined up in rows. All of us had different backgrounds and circumstances but all of us were without housing. We moved to another shelter a few months later where my family would share one room with four beds, one for each of us. My family battled homelessness on and off for over 20 years, despite my mom working consistently for most of this time. No matter how much my mom worked, housing cost outpaced her income and that was back in the 90s and early 2000s. When I go back to North Carolina most of the former homes we did have, one being a trailer on a small hill of red clay and sparse patches of grass are gone. Where that trailer sat are now homes valued at $900,000. They even changed the name of the street from Firth Court to Tippah Park Court, just to make sure the remnants of what was there were completely erased.
My entire youth, from 1993-2004, I was fighting for survival. Alongside my family I fought what felt like was a never-ending battle of being housing insecure. The experience was a source of pain and, honestly, some days it still is. I tell this story not as a sad story about my life but as an example of what is happening in cities and towns across the world where people are not just losing their homes, but their communities. This experience as a youth was the catalyst for the work that I have done and continue to do. I want to ensure that less people experience what my family and I experienced, and if by chance they find themselves in a similar situation, they can come out on the other side with a comfortable place to call home. In 2008, I became a community organizer with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, now the Chicago Coalition to end Homelessness. Becoming an organizer gave young Ashley a voice, it turned my shame and pain into passion and purpose. I focused less on what happened to me, but why it happened and why it was continuing to happen to others.
As I learned more about housing policy, housing finance and housing development it became clear that the issue on housing was no longer about simply a place to call home, or a human right. The priority for housing was now about making someone money, whether that be an individual, a developer or a municipality. Housing is key to improving physical and mental health. Quality, safe housing results in higher educational attainment and achievement, stable housing creates stable communities and a stable workforce to keep our economy going. Housing is so much more than financial returns on investments. Housing, or better yet, a home, is an investment in a person and community’s well-being.
Trying to create systemic change is a hard road to walk, especially when it seems you are walking it alone. Working with organizers in Chicago and CLT advocates and organizers all over the world has let me know I am not walking alone and help me continue the work of those whose shoulders I stand. I can’t change my past, but I can work with others to steward the future and support young people in continuing down the road in the fight for change on behalf of young Ashley and others like her.
Bio
Ashley Allen serves as the Executive Director of the Houston Community Land Trust. She brings to the role non-profit leadership and program development experience in the areas of education, S.T.E.M., workforce development and affordable housing. As a community organizer for over 10 years, she helped develop and drive campaigns for improved homeless services, affordable housing policy, and education in Chicago, IL. Ashley served as a consultant with the Barack Obama Foundation where she was responsible for the planning and implementation of the foundation’s initiative to develop the next generation of community organizers and advocates. Ashley’s experience as a homeless youth is what ignited her passion to help increase housing accessibility and affordability for those that need it most. She serves on the Board of The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County and is a member of the Houston Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority, Inc. Ashley holds a B.S. in Food Science from Florida A&M University, an M.P.A from Governors State University and a Ph.D. in Cultural and Educational Policy with a concentration in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago.